Strike While The Cheek Is Hot
by tielan
Summary: Stark would have known what to do with an outraged woman facing him, betrayal in her eyes. Rogers had no clue what was going on, what to do, how to behave. Which was why he was perfect.


**Strike While The Cheek Is Hot**

The mission was supposed to be easy in, easy out.

An hour in, Maria got the call from Clint. "Too many eyes. We're going to need a distraction. Something big and eye-catching."

"Bigger and more eye-catching than Rogers?" Maria inquired as she watched the security feeds S.H.I.E.L.D. had hooked into for this mission. There were certainly crowds around Rogers, but the problem wasn't the crowds – the problem was the security men who weren't being distracted by anything as mundane as a polite gentleman wandering about the room with no intention of causing trouble.

"Rogers is causing a quiet stir," Clint said. "Unfortunately, what we need is more along the lines of Stark."

"Dramatic, emotional, and egotistical?" Maria ran through a half-dozen scenarios in her head and settled on one. "All right, I'm on it. Give me ten minutes."

Door security scanned her ticket, x-rayed her bag, and waved her through without a second glance. Women like her were a dime a dozen at these events – pretty bits of fluff that arrived alone and left on a man's arm. Harmless, really.

Only not so much.

Maria sashayed into the ballroom and swiped a glass of champagne off a tray. A quick survey of the room showed Natasha laughingly coaxing one of the guests off into a side corridor, Barton in conference with a bunch of young European banker types, and Rogers listening politely and attentively to an elderly man holding forth on some topic, while the pretty young wife eyed him like a dog eyeing fresh meat.

They needed something big and eye-catching? They would get something big and eye-catching.

She downed the rest of the champagne. One glass wouldn't impair her judgement that much, and she was going to need the alcoholic rush to do this the way it should be done.

The glass went on a sideboard, her chin went up, her shoulders squared. Maria strode across the ballroom floor, direct as an arrow from a bow – or a woman scorned.

Rogers saw her coming, of course. Given the shock, surprise, and outrage she left in her wake as she moved through the crowds, she was impossible to miss. Still, it took him a moment to recognise her – she saw the confusion give way to astonishment, and then disbelief.

"Hill? What—?"

She slapped him. Hard, across the jaw – no light slap, this - leaving the imprint of her fingers on his cheek. "That," she said, tossing her hair over her shoulder, " is for Lyons!" She slapped him again as he turned back. "And that is for Bratislava!"

Stark would have known what to do with an outraged woman facing him, betrayal in her eyes. Rogers had no clue what was going on, what to do, how to behave.

Which was why he was perfect.

"I don't—"

"Of course you don't," Maria sneered, getting in his face. The three-inch heels helped with both the height and the sway as she planted her feet, the picture of a tipsy woman, outraged, uncaring of the scene she was making. "Leaving me to deal with the police? Running out on me before daybreak? Lying to me about the Roma woman?"

She slapped him again seeing as he was gaping at her, confusion written all over his face. Her hand was beginning to burn – he had a very nice, well-formed jaw, but it was a bitch to slap.

Rather more fun than she'd expected, though.

"Excuse me, miss—" The elderly man sounded offended.

"You're excused," she snapped, never taking her eye off Rogers. Understanding was beginning to dawn in his eyes – and she tilted her head. "Oh, and now it's all coming back, is it?"

She slapped him again. Or tried to. This time he dodged her palm and caught her wrist in a hard grip, pulling her in so she was nearly up against him, off-balance. Maria caught her breath as he leaned in.

"You're making a scene," he said, his voice low and controlled. And for a moment, he wasn't Steve Rogers, but someone else, who looked like him and sounded like him, but who would be dangerous when provoked.

Not a nice man at all.

Maria reacted on instinct and whacked him with her beaded clutch. "And you're a heartless bastard," she said, tears filling her eyes. "You could have had the decency to at least leave a fucking _note_!"

Security was making their way across the room, preparing to throw her out. She was disrupting the party, after all, and must not be allowed to make a mess of the night. Of course, Maria wasn't planning to go quietly. The more noise she made, the easier it would be for Natasha to slip past the guards watching the drama unfold.

Expecting to be released as security stepped up, Maria took a step back – or tried to. The hand around her wrist didn't let go, and she dimly registered Rogers' courteous "Excuse me," to the couple with whom he'd been speaking.

The next moment, there were hands on her waist and she was being hoisted up. Her screech of outrage ended with an undignified squawk as his shoulder landed in her stomach. She swiped at him with the clutch, glittering beads making no impression at all on the back of his perfectly-tailored dinner jacket.

"I've got this," she heard him say, and internally cringed, imagining the scene they were making.

Only that was the point, wasn't it?

Maria tried to wriggle down – point or not, it was uncomfortable being slung over a shoulder. Then she jerked up with a gasp as he slapped her on the butt, a sharp, ringing contact that resounded through the ballroom.

It jolted through her, sharp and unexpected. Sudden fire in her flesh and the awareness of physicality. The catch in her breath wasn't entirely shock. Something warmer and more liquid slid through her belly, rubbed across her breasts.

She heard the stir of surprise through the room, although the titters and guffaws came as though from far away. Her left buttock was burning, like he'd seared her with the contact. She felt Rogers' inhalation as though startled at his own temerity. Then his hand gripped her leg in warning and her cheeks burned with a humiliation that was entirely unfeigned.

She fought back, nevertheless, kicking and yelling at him, half-crying as he carried her out of the room. It would have been out of character if she hadn't, but even in the midst of it, Maria wasn't sure how much of her tears and emotion were real and how much was faked.

They went out the hallway, and down the stairs to the driveway where a car was just driving up. Someone opened the door for him and Maria caught a glimpse of amused and staring valets in suits...

"Oh, don't you even _think_ of—!"

Maria yelped as he tossed her into the limousine, one last shriek of outrage before Rogers climbed in and pulled the door shut behind him. A moment later, the limo moved out and away from the hotel, into the night.

She heaved a sigh and sat back, smoothing down the hem of her skimpy cocktail dress which had slid up her thigh. "Think that did it?"

"It did _something_, anyway." Rogers looked annoyed.

Maria glanced through the privacy window which was presently sitting open. "Corwith?"

"Romanoff's in, and Tieu has reached the breaker room. Barton's planted the squeaker..." Agent Ben Corwith navigated the traffic with the expertise of a professional chauffeur. "Singh's on her way in to cover for Rogers' absence on the retreat. They'll rendesvous as planned."

Maria arched a brow at Rogers, who was feeling his cheek with his hand. "Think of it as a necessary evil."

"Hitting me that hard was a necessary evil?"

"We needed a scene, and since we didn't have Stark available, you were it. Would you have reacted if I'd pulled it?"

"Pull them next time and I will," he muttered. "And some warning would have been nice."

Biting back the urge to tell him not to be a big baby, Maria looked out the window of the limousine as Basel moved smoothly past them. She pushed back the loosened curls of her hair, twisting it into a coil at the nape of her neck before letting it go – she had nothing with which to tie it.

On the seat beside her, Rogers shifted, the drag of trouser cloth against suede upholstery managing to sound...uncomfortable.

Wriggling back in the seat, Maria glanced sideways and caught him looking at her legs, one hand lightly curled on the seat between them. As she watched, his fingers flexed.

She thought for a moment about his hand slapping her on the butt – hard and sharp and fierce and unexpected. She thought about that face under her fingertips as she arranged it, graceful planes upturned as she shaved him to a hard-on.

Oh yes, Maria had been quite aware of how he'd responded to her shave. She'd just maintained the polite fiction of ignorance while in the same room.

Although after the presidential visit and reception, she'd allowed herself one night fantasising about going down on him in that tiny bathroom, his hands clenched in her hair as he spilled himself helplessly in her mouth. She'd stroked herself to orgasm thinking about his hands on her skin – caressing and clutching and very impolite.

Then she'd taken great care not to be anywhere he was for over two weeks.

Now, sitting in the back of a limousine, Maria thought about closing the privacy shield on Corwith and taking Rogers' hands in her own. She thought about sliding them underneath her skirts to rest on the flesh that still burned from his smack. She thought about taking that face between her burning palm and her cool hand and making the temporary fiction of an affair-gone-bad a heated reality.

A very bad idea.

She folded her hands in her lap, hot palm against cold fingers.

The movement made Rogers realise he'd been caught staring. He blushed, a wash of scarlet over the still-bright mark on his cheek.

"I'm sorry about the smack," he blurted with frank honesty.

Maria had better control – and more experience at dissembling. She didn't bat an eyelash. "I'll think of it as a necessary evil."

But between her thighs, a pulse throbbed.

**fin**


End file.
